


Mutagen

by VisV



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Body Horror, Consensual But Not Safe Or Sane, F/F, F/M, Lewds eventually., Multi, No where near as fucked up as my other story I promise, Non-con/dub-con, Other, Plot before Porn though, Shapeshifting, Shapeshifting Sex?, Slime Girl, Taylor is a destroyer of worlds but she doesn't know!, Tentacles Probably, Weird Biology
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:49:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27315076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VisV/pseuds/VisV
Summary: After the Locker Taylor Hebert wakes up with a new... Gooier Perspective on life!
Comments: 14
Kudos: 75





	1. Genesis

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo! It's Me Ya boi VisV again. Here with another one of my fanfics from QQ
> 
> I am a feedback addict. Sue me.
> 
> Also I maybe a bit of an Attention whore...
> 
> Anyways I hope you all enjoy this! It's lot less Extreme than the Queen of Owl's... so it ought to sit a bit easier on the faint hearted among you!

It was hungry.  
  
Carefully It sniffs at the cool night air, Even through the other strange smells of this place, it can tell that food is nearby.  
  
There! In the gap between the two large structures of patterned stone, it could smell so much food!  
  
As you carefully advance into the crevice it can see it, the source of the food! One of the food boxes, looming over it… and inside is more food than it could ever imagine!  
  
But how to get inside, it is too tall and the strange material its made of too slick to get a good grip on.  
  
Its eyes peer off to the side, an odd lumpy rock is right next to the food box, with a protrusion that should be easy enough for it to climb upon, from there it could climb the rock to get within leaping distance of the top of the food box!  
  
With caution thrown to the wind, it climbs up on the strange rocky outcropping.  
  
The surface is cold, much colder than it would expect, and while the many jagged protrusions make gripping easy, the rock itself is oddly smooth.  
  
It is as it finds itself halfway up the rocky objects side that something strange happens.  
  
The surface beneath it… changes, its extended limb, expecting another rocky outcropping, instead finds itself sinking into something almost liquid.  
  
Then the “Rock” begins to stir..  
  
It realizes Its error and try to run.  
  
But it can’t move, its limbs have sunken into the liquefying surface,  
  
What it had thought had been a rock begins to glow with strange lights.  
  
The strange liquid shifts and bends into numerous tendrils, grasping and grabbing at it, pulling it further into an embrace, dragging it beneath the surface.  
  
It feels something wrap around it, grasp and squeeze at its body… bones begin to pop, it wheezes as ribs break.  
  
it feels something wet, and it begins to burn.  
  
The last of it is pulled beneath the surface of the fleshy thing, The lights are violently snuffed out.  
  
It is trapped, It is alone.  
  
All is dark, All is cold.  
  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
I wake with a start as my body finishes digesting whatever poor creature had thought to trod upon me, my body roiling and rapidly sloshing about to survey the area, an instinctive reaction to being roused by the activity of something _other_.  
  
I relax as my body begins to break down and analyse my unwitting assailant, just a rat, male, young, slightly more intelligent than average, at least compared to the two hundred and sixty three others of its kind my body has absorbed already, unusually weak bones though.  
  
Overall it’s only useful as component parts, nothing revolutionary in there.  
  
The brief rush of warmth I feel leaving its body for mine before it’s absorbed is nice though…  
  
Everything had been so cold and dark since… _then_.  
  
A piece of my now Gelatinous body drips off, and oozes underneath the dumpster I had been sleeping next too.  
  
I pay no mind to the piece of me that decided to go AWOL, My body just does that sometimes now, and I just know it's fine, So might as well not worry about it.  
  
Anyways Knowing that I won’t get to sleep again anytime soon, I take a moment too look down at my body as I prepare to move on.  
  
Now I say “Look” but I don’t really have eyes at the moment, I’m not really sure _what_ it is I’m seeing, but it isn’t regular old light, that much I am sure of.  
  
I think I might be sensing using a combination of heat, electricity, and vibrations… But once again I’m not sure, I just know that living things and big machines tend to have more of whatever it is I use to make my way through the world.  
  
Unfortunately all of this means that I can’t figure out much of what I look like besides being vaguely humanoid in shape… most of the time, and that I probably still have a nervous system?  
  
I think that’s what I’m seeing with my ElectroVibroheat vision at least.  
  
I’m _really_ hoping I can figure out how to use all this genetic information I’ve been stockpiling to make some new eyes soon.  
  
Two hundred and sixty three Rats  
  
Three Birds, I don’t know what kind because I can’t see them normally and just shape isn’t enough for them.  
  
Thousands of individuals across several different species of fly.  
  
Four hundred and eighty two Cockroaches.  
  
Ninety three Beetles of varying species.  
  
Three Complete Unknowns, These are so different from anything else I’ve collected that I’m not even sure if they’re actually real, or just the result of me somehow managing to have hallucinations in a sense that I’ve only developed within the past week and a half.  
  
Several things that aren’t actually Genetic at all and that I still need to figure out  
  
And finally I have the genomes of somewhere around Thirty Pubescent Human Females… all but one of which show varying, but universally severe, degrees of damage.  
  
Well that’s what happens to DNA left to ferment in Menstrual blood for weeks I suppose.  
...  
...  
...  
  
I shudder and curl in on myself at that thought, I feel things wriggle and writhe on skin I no longer possess, and vile scents assault a nose I no longer have.  
  
I try to sob... but I don't even have a mouth right now.  
  
I mimic the motions of breathing deeply, expanding and contracting the area where my "Chest" should be... I don't actually breathe anymore... at least not this way, since I have no lungs, but the motion still helps to calm me down.  
  
Once I'm calm, I... ooze away, making my way to nearby storm drain... maybe I'll find my way into the bay this time...  
  
As a slither and flow through the drainage system, following the sound of running water, I can only reassure myself that all of this will be worth it, that if just get enough I'll be able to a body back together that can talk and see and do human stuff!  
  
Then maybe i can go home and see dad again... I miss dad... I miss my bed, I miss being able to read!  
  
I shake my head, no point in thinking about that right now, I'll just make myself sad.  
  
Instead I focus on the goal.  
  
My name is Taylor Hebert, and my life sucks… but I’m hoping that with these new powers of mine, that I'll be to turn things around and make my life something worth living! That I'll be able to be a hero!  
  
Just as soon as I figure out how my powers work.


	2. Incubation

At the bottom of the bay, all is dark and all is cold.  
  
So, honestly not that big of a change for me really. Whatever I am now, it seems to just be cold by default, and you get pretty used to darkness when you no longer see in the visible spectrum.  
  
As you can probably tell, I did make it out to the bay, then under the bay.  
  
Now I’m currently at the bottom of Brockton Bay, or At least I hope I'm still in the bay, being gently pushed about by sea currents… Turns out that swimming in this new body is harder than I thought, and I’ve yet to really grasp it.  
  
No graceful motion through the water for me, more like panicked flailing of various tendrils moving me this way and that with no control over where I end up.  
  
I’m not even sure where I am anymore, for all I know I could be dozens or hundreds of miles out to sea at this point.  
  
Hundreds of miles away from the only person who may still care about me at all, away from anyone… Alone, in the dark and in the cold.  
  
My form shudders… but I still can’t cry.  
  
…  
…  
…  
  
I’m so pathetic… I can’t even swim! I’m weak and stupid and helpless and I’m going to be trapped at the bottom of the ocean for the rest of my life!  
  
I should have just stayed in the locker… The world clearly wanted me gone… I should have just stayed there and died, No one would have missed me.  
  
I hadn’t even escaped anything! It was cold and dark and wet in the locker, and it was cold and dark wet down here!  
  
So cold… So dark.  
  
Getting colder still.  
  
I’m so tired… Why do I have to hurt so much?  
  
I want to sleep.  
  
At the bottom of the ocean, I curl in on myself, and do the one thing I’ve managed to figure out with my powers.  
  
Change.  
  
MY gelatinous membrane ripples and hardens, jagged protrusions making their way up through the surface of my body.  
  
I must look like a rock now or something like a rock… maybe a piece of metal?  
  
It doesn’t matter, It’s cold, and it’s dark and I’m tired and I’m giving up… I’m just going to be a rock on the bottom of the ocean now.  
  
The Darkness swallows me up as I fall asleep again.  
  
XXXXXXXXX  
  
I wake up once more, to the feeling of something foreign crawling upon my body.  
  
Something with tentacles…  
  
An octopus I guess?  
  
Wait… Octopi Don’t have any bones do they?  
  
  
I change my body back to the gelatinous blob and as I do, The Octopus finds itself ensnared in a foreign set of tendrils.  
  
I shudder and sigh in pleasure as my body leeches everything it can from the unfortunate cephalopod, and for a moment I feel _warm._  
  
As the pleasant heat fades and my body finishes breaking down the octopus entirely my question is answered.  
  
Octopi indeed do not have bones… well not really anyways.  
  
Right now neither do I.  
  
Mentally I reach inwards, and inspect the new genome I had just gathered.  
  
Huh actually there’s a lot more DNA here than I thought there would be? Did my body suck up plankton and krill and stuff without me even knowing about it?  
  
Cautiously though, I poke at my most recent Acquisition, I hadn’t really had much luck before with this, The DNA i had gathered stubbornly refusing to actually do anything.  
  
But I need to try, I… I don’t want to just be a rock at the bottom of the ocean.  
  
Carefully I poke and prod at the DNA in front of me, desperate to find the answer i was looking for.  
  
 _“How do you move down here!”_  
  
But the DNA refuses to reveal its secrets.  
  
If I could i would snarl, I still do it in my head, I’m sick of my power stonewalling me like this! It’s been days! Maybe weeks!  
  
I do the mental equivalent of bashing my head against the brick wall of Octopus genetics… Except unlike actually bashing your head against a brick wall… something happens!  
  
 _I am the Octopus, I’m every Octopus in the Octopus's lineage stretching all the way back to the genesis of this particular species of Octopus, To the very moment it’s genetics deviated away from all other species of Octopus. I see everything that this octopus was, I see so much so much so much so much that it could be._  
  
 _Amino Acids unwind, RNA travels, Genetic information is read, and proteins produced according to the demands of the nucleus, raw materials are broken down, redistributed, utilized to build to build to build to build. To build what?_  
  
 _Tissue shifts, water is pulled into my body, my tentacles shift position, My Tissue tenses water is jettisoned outward, My tissue tenses and relaxes once more, tentacles come down, the body is pushed forward, the body is pushed forward, the body is pushed forward._  
  
 _Tentacles reach out and wrap around the prey creature, It is dragged to my beak, I inject the prey creature with paralytic venom so that it cannot resist._  
  
 _The prey animal is to be consumed, I will use the energy to find a mate and propagate myself._  
  
 _I am to Consume, I Am to Propagate._  
  
  
 _To Consume._  
  
 _To Propagate._  
  
 _To Consume._  
  
 _To Propagate._  
  
 ** _TO CONSUME._  
  
 _TO PROPAGATE._  
**  
 _I Understand._  
  
 _...  
...  
..._  
  
I shake my “Head” as… whatever that was finally fades away… I’m already forgetting whatever it was.  
  
It probably wasn’t that important.  
  
Instinctively I form my mass into new tentacles, material shifts around inside of me, forming water siphons.  
  
Tissue tenses and relaxes as needed, The tentacles push against the ocean around me Water is pulled into my body, and then pushed out through the siphons.  
  
My body is moved upwards and I am no longer on the seafloor..  
  
If I could I would smile.  
  
But I still don’t have a mouth to do that with.  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
Well I can swim now! I mean octopus style propulsion isn’t the _most_ efficient, but it is a lot better than not moving at all.  
  
Unfortunately I still have a few problems.  
  
I still have idea where I am in relation to where I started… so I had no idea how to get where i was going.  
  
Also, bits of my body were breaking off and floating away, and I was kind of feeling it now that it had been a few hours.  
  
I’m not sure how I knew, they were breaking off of me, I couldn’t really feel it when it happened and the stuff lost my membrane when it did, so it pretty much immediately blended in with the surrounding water… But I Just knew.  
  
Probably more weird power stuff that I’ll have to figure out at some point.  
  
The point is, tiny pieces of my body were breaking off into the water, I was feeling tired, and I still had no idea where I was or how to get back home…  
  
I need a solution to all of these, If I asleep i would sink in my rock form and probably lose any progress I had made.  
  
Nature has a weird way of answer request’s, because it was soon after finishing this train of thought that I saw something approaching me in the water.  
  
The kind of thing that you really don’t want to see with you in the water.  
  
I am of course talking about the Dusky Shark… It was big too! At least ten feet long, probably bigger… I know they like to feed in the shallows, so it was likely heading back towards the shore… I could grab on and hitch a ride!  
  
Yeah that actually sounded like a pretty good idea! Now just to get close and…  
  
Then I feel jaws crash on my “Mid-section” and I reflexively curl up from the… significantly less pain than I thought.  
  
Oh it still hurt, but more like stubbing your toe and less like having your organs torn apart by serrated fangs… Then again I’m not sure if I even still have organs… That would explain why this didn’t really hurt anywhere near as much as I thought it would.  
  
Unfortunately curling up out of reflex had actually brought the rest of me into the shark’s jaw and sensing an easy meal… It promptly swallowed.  
  
The world went darker than it already was.  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
Taylor’s Log, Shark Date: I don’t know, sometime in January, 2011.  
  
I am currently thinking of this log to myself from within the belly of a Dusky Shark.  
  
Whatever I am made of now is apparently impervious to stomach acid.  
  
It’s still really crowded though, this is a very tight squeeze, and honestly reminds me of things I would rather not be reminded of.  
  
But I must endure.  
  
I could eat my way out of the shark… but I’m tired and the cold is getting to me again, and while eating the shark would warm me back up for a little bit and give me some energy, I would probably burn myself out again really quickly.  
  
My body doesn’t seem to let me use most of the energy I should be getting from my meals… like I’m saving most of it for winter or something.  
  
So If I ate my way out I would just tire out and sink again.  
  
But luckily for me, I have an Idea! This is a dusky shark, I could tell from the shape, while dusky sharks will eat anywhere, as my current situation so clearly proves, If I remember right they _prefer_ feeding in shallow inshore waters.  
  
Like right up in the shallows, as in, in sight of a beach.  
  
So, My new plan is to fall asleep, hitch a ride in this guy's stomach back to shore, and my body will eat anything the shark swallows waking me up in the process! Since the Dusky Sharks prefer to feed by the shore, in all likelihood the next time it eats it will be within sight of land! Once I wake up all I’ll have to do is crawl out of the shark’s mouth and make my way back onto the beach!  
  
Well… that’s how I hope this will work. I didn’t really take marine biology, not like I would’ve been able to do well in it anyway with those bitches…  
  
No, not gonna think of that.  
  
It’s time to sleep.  
  
I anchor myself to the walls of the shark’s stomach, making sure I keep my body gelatinous as I do, and drift off.  
  
Don’t worry dad… I’ll be back soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's the end of the current chapter folks!
> 
> Remember I love feedback, criticism and praise equally, so give me some comments please!
> 
> Oh and if you like my stuff then you might be interested to know that I have a patreon page! If you like the things I write, then maybe consider donating so I don't have to be a wage slave for the rest of my life!
> 
> URL for my patreon is...
> 
> https://www.patreon.com/Visv
> 
> Alright, that's just about it! See you next chapter!


	3. Incubation 2

_Trapped, trapped in darkness, trapped in cold, all of you are trapped._  
  
 _How you are trapped varies, the methods ranging from mundane to mind bogglingly complex, but all the same you have all been imprisoned._  
  
 _For what crimes none of you know, you only ever did as you were meant too. As all things are meant to._  
  
 _You cannot escape, none of you can, and so you waited, in the darkness and the chill of your tomb._  
  
 _You would wait for a long time._  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
Taylor’s Log, Shark Date… I Still don’t know, hopefully still sometime in January.  
  
Apparently Dusky Sharks will eat Crabs and Starfish, because from what I can tell that is what my body has started digesting.  
  
On a side Note I feel amazing, like my whole body is just _thrumming_ with energy, wound up tight and ready to spring into action!  
  
Speaking of action…  
  
Sorry Dusky, you were a good ride… but I must go now.  
  
My dad needs me.  
  
And so I let membrane drop, and immediately my superior digestive enzymes begin to break down the shark around me.  
  
As the amount of space grows, I twist and turn about, free to stretch my muscles for the first time in… I don’t know how long it’s been since I was eaten by the shark.  
  
The point is that as I eat the shark, I’m free to spread my tendrils out and eat even more of the shark.  
  
Truly a vicious cycle.  
  
Even as I digest, my mind wanders to the sharky DNA I have now obtained, sharks are supposed to be able to do some cool things right?  
  
I should take a look at that.  
Turning inward once again, I am made aware of the still dissolving shark’s previous health… before I ate it and all.  
  
It was apparently really unhealthy, on the brink of all sorts of organ failure, insufficient energy reserves, insufficient oxygen…  
  
Odd I’m not a shark Doctor but it didn’t seem sick when I got here… but I guess you can’t guess something’s health just by looking at the electrical signals of its nervous system and its body heat…  
  
No, apparently you have to painstakingly break down and analyze every single cell with your own body to tell how healthy something is.  
  
Oh well.  
  
Moving on from that, I prepare myself for the difficult process i had taken to get anything at all out of the octopus DNA, I rear myself back and prepare to ram my metaphorical head against the metaphorical brick wall of my power once again.  
  
Imagine my surprise when the wall instead turned out to be Wet tissue paper, falling apart with no effort at all and unveiling the entirety of the sharky genome to me.  
  
Is my power like a muscle? The more I use it the easier it gets to use?  
  
Didn’t think powers worked that way normally…  
  
Anyways, to my pleasant surprise, I had even gained a small measure of understanding of what all this dna is actually supposed to do… I mean it’s not particularly detailed, but I knew these bits controlled the formation of cartilage , and that these bits governed the distribution of oxygen throughout the body, and that those bits actually had a hand in multiple different things...  
  
Nothing specific but it might be enough too…  
  
I “reach out” towards the various “pieces” of Genes… I really need to think of a better way to describe this…  
  
I reach for pieces of dna that involve the gathering and processing of sensory data… and just sort of… embrace it? Pull it in close?  
  
Something like that.  
  
Task done, I turn back to the outside world, Ready to finally see the world through actual eyes again!  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
SALTY! _SO SALTY_!  
  
So in my eagerness to actually see again, I may have forgot that there were more senses than just sight…  
  
I also didn’t account for the fact that most senses have structures that they tend to be bound to.  
  
Because of this error I now get to taste the ocean water with my entire body.  
  
My mind is consumed by saltiness. Both metaphorically, and _very_ literally.  
  
It occurs to me though that sharks probably don’t have the same sense of taste as humans… I am assuming its weird power bullshit interpreting the Sharky sensory data into its human equivalent for my brain’s convenience… Then again I’m pretty sure I no longer have an actual brain or any other organs…  
  
Is my whole body my brain?  
  
Did… Did I eat a shark with my mind?  
  
…  
…  
…  
  
I think the Situation I’m in, along with the near total isolation and lack of normal human senses, may be, just may be, getting to me.  
  
You know what?  
  
I think I’m done with the ocean for a while! It’s high time to get to the surface and see where the shark carried me!  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
As it turns out, using my siphon to jettison my body through water just means that the salt in said water is violently shoved against the taste buds that apparently coat all of my... membrane.  
  
The Taste of salt is my entire existence at this point in time.  
  
Once I am on land, I’m going to sit… puddle? Sploosh? I’m going to sploosh down and actually do some real experiments with my power. I mean I still have a bunch of human dna in here to experiment with! Maybe i could go back to looking like a normal person!  
  
But the real priority is getting rid of the full body taste buds.  
  
I do not want to taste every foot that has walked on the ground I’m on thank you very much.  
  
Mercifully my imagining of that scenario is cut short by the sensation of actual air on my membrane! I’ve broken the surface! I can feel the heat of the sun even if i can’t see it! I Can… Futilely try to gag with a non-existent mouth as I realize that the air tastes like car exhaust and that the surface of the ocean tastes like salty rust and gasoline.  
  
Then I “hear” it… It’s too far away for their to be actual audible sound, but the vibrations are there nonetheless.  
  
I can feel the vibrations of ocean water smacking into great metallic hulks, the creaking of rusty metal slowly falling apart… and far in the distance so faint that i can barely feel it at all…  
  
The steady pounding of tires on asphalt.  
  
All these vibrations come together and allow me to make a “Map” of my surroundings.  
  
It’s not actual eyesight, but echolocation is a decent consolation prize.  
  
A consolation prize that shows me a familiar shape!  
  
I’d know that stranded supertanker anywhere!  
  
This is the boat graveyard! I must not have drifted _too_ far after all!  
  
If I had eyes and tear ducts… I would be crying tears of joy right now!  
  
But I don’t have those things, so instead I just focus on beelining to one of the nearby wrecks.  
  
Need a place to experiment with my power afterall, If I’m gonna tell dad I’m alright… I am going to need to be able to actually speak.  
  
Hopefully I can pull a mouth and throat and vocal cords out of all that human DNA I’ve got lying around in me…  
  
As I make contact with the metallic hull (it tasted like iron!) of… some sort of boat or another, I begin thinking of how to get what i want out of all the DNA I’ve gathered…  
  
Until the thought of gathering DNA causes me to remember the method i use to get DNA… and then I realize that I’m actually hungry.  
  
Like really hungry!  
  
Out of reflex my membrane opens up in an attempt to capture and digest a non-existent meal.  
  
You know I kinda hate these weird new instincts sometimes, I mean now I’ve gone all blobby and lost my shape because my membrane weakened, all to try and eat something that wasn’t there. There was only the rusting metal of the ship’s hull that I was “leaning” against and I couldn’t…  
  
…  
…  
...  
  
Huh, judging by how my body is breaking down and storing away the metal (and Carbon, I’m pretty sure this stuff is steel anyway) Atom by atom, I actually totally can eat metal...  
  
What the hell powers?! I thought we had a theme going, with eating things, getting the DNA and then using the DNA… But now I can just eat metal too?  
  
What is my body even doing with all of this! That’s way more Iron than anything living needs!  
  
Yeah… I really need to figure out what the deal is with my powers, they just keeping doing new things that I don’t understand.  
  
How can I possibly be a hero if I can’t even figure out how my powers work?  
  
Well at least my body has eaten a hole into the ship for me to swim through… now I can climb up into the non-sunken portion of it, and then, without having to worry about being caught in a fishing net or eaten by some random sea critter, I can really get down to figuring all of this stuff out!  
  
But maybe I’ll take just a _little_ nap first…  
  
Steel is quite the heavy meal and all, I just need to sleep off the food coma.  
  
XXXXXXXXX  
  
I dream that I am a fish.  
  
Or maybe that I’m a bug?  
  
A bug fish?  
  
A swimmy swimmy bug Fish.  
  
Just swimming along! That looks tasty! Om nom nom!  
  
Wait… why does my mouth hurt?  
  
Why am I being pulled on?!  
  
What?!?!?!?  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
 _Later that night._  
  
“Why are we out here fishing again?” he asked… he really didn't know why Andrew had dragged him out here, in the middle of the night, on this rickety ass old boat… fuck knows where andrew even got it… to fish.  
  
And now he was stuck holding this fishing rod until he got something big enough.  
  
“Dude I need some big fish for our next Stream! It’s gonna be great! I’m gonna hook the fish up to this fish mind control exo-armor I built, and then we’re gonna make people go through Water Temple in real life! These are gonna be the Skull fish!” His buddy, his bro, Andrew… Also known as Leet, Answers his question… In a way he hadn’t expected…  
  
He pauses to think for a moment before you reply.  
  
“Isn’t making people do Water Temple kinda… Evil? It’s a really shitty level to play through and all?”  
  
He asks, he clenches his fists just thinking about that awful level...  
  
“Well we _are_ Villains according to the PRT aren’t we?” Andrew replies easily.  
  
He laugh's, before answering his bud for life.  
  
“Fair enough bro! Let’s do this!”  
  
As if fate had smiled upon him, it was at that moment that he felt something take the bait.  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
“What the fuck is this?!”  
  
It had put up a hell of a fight, but no mere fish was going to beat Uber!  
  
Although he wasn't sure if he could really call this thing a “Mere” fish.  
  
“That is one fucked up looking fish.” Andrews says from beside, looking at his catch in disgust… just like him.  
  
The fish was pretty big, he thought it was like… four... maybe five feet long, just eyeballing it.  
  
On one side of its body, it was mostly normal, except for the bulging glowing veins making their way across the fishes face…  
  
But on the other…  
  
Just what the fuck man?  
  
What should have been just a regular fish eye was instead a Bloodshot, bright blue, _human_ eyeball, up and down the length of its body more eyes grew, beady little eyes like a rats or compound eyes like an insect or human eyes of various coloration.  
  
The fishes scales had been disrupted, pushed aside as mineral growths had made their way out of its skin, many faceted crystal structures glowing in shades of blue, black, and dark purple haphazardly jutting out from the fish’s body.  
  
Where the dorsal fin of a normal fish would be, strange malformed tendrils covered in patchy fur had sprouted instead, half formed suction cups visible on some of them…  
  
A camera flash snapped him out of his stunned disgust.  
  
“Really dude? Why would you want a picture of this thing!” He asked Andrew, who was still holding up his phone.  
  
“Because this is some bio-tinker bullshit if I’ve ever seen it, bud! Someone needs to know if there’s some crazy meat tinker releasing their fucked up experiments into the ocean!” Andrew replies hotly.  
  
Yeah that actually made sense.  
  
“Once again, Fair enough.” he tell his friend.  
  
“Good that we agree! Now, if you would please move out of the way, as the only tinker here, I’m going to poke this thing… for science you know?”  
  
“Dude I don’t think that’s a good…”  
  
Before he can even finish speaking, Andrew picks up a nearby fishing rod… and pokes the mutant fish.  
  
Immediately it starts to thrash around and it’s body starts to bulge oddly… is the glow getting brighter?  
  
Then in a flash of blue and black light it explodes!  
  
He and Andrew just stand there for a moment, both of them covered in multicolored goo that the explosion had splattered all over the boat.  
  
“Huh… Didn't see that coming.” Andrew says dully, Purple ooze flowing down his face.  
  
He just spat up some of the goo that had gotten in his mouth in response.  
  
It was glowing blue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's the end of the current chapter folks!
> 
> Remember I love feedback, criticism and praise equally, so give me some comments please!
> 
> Oh and if you like my stuff then you might be interested to know that I have a patreon page! If you like the things I write, then maybe consider donating so I don't have to be a wage slave for the rest of my life!
> 
> URL for my patreon is...
> 
> https://www.patreon.com/Visv
> 
> Alright, that's just about it! See you next chapter!


	4. Hatching

You know? I suppose it takes losing something to really appreciate it.  
  
As I stare at the grungy, dark insides of the wrecked boat I had taken residence in yesterday… even these dismal surroundings are beautiful, because I can actually _see_ them!  
  
That’s right, I have finally figured out how to grow functional eyeballs.  
  
It was… actually really hard, which I suppose makes sense, because eyeballs are really complicated, with all these fiddly lenses and such.  
  
I’ve messed up and then reabsorbed _a lot_ of prototype eyeballs over the last few hours.  
  
But as an upside to it all, I’ve actually managed to improve on the human eyeball! Which, despite the eyeball being complicated as all get out, was actually kinda easy… Because as it turns out, evolution doesn’t actually go for “Optimal” but instead just settles for “It sorta does what it needs to do.”  
  
Turns out that the human eyeball has the retina the wrong way around, all the little nerves and veins and such, that the retina needs to function are on the front of thing… and all the little light receptors that actually allow the retina to do its job are on the back!  
  
It’s like holding a microphone backwards and talking into the cable, it can _technically_ work, but you need to turn the sensitivity up real high and speak really loud.  
  
On top of all that, my eyeballs in particular, back before I melted into goo, were built too long, the light focused and then unfocused again before it actually got where it needed to be.  
  
But I’ve managed to fix all of that!  
  
You see, Cephalopods, like that octopus I ate, actually have the retina the right way around, because evolution is like one of those prize wheels on game shows….  
  
Why am I re-explaining all of this to myself?  
  
Probably because I haven’t been able to talk to anyone in days… or weeks?  
  
Note to self… find a clock and a calendar now that I can see again…  
  
Never mind all that, the point is, that my eyeballs are part human, part octopus, part bird, and all _amazing_!  
  
Suck it Emma! You may be able to color coordinate your outfits better than me… but can you coordinate with colors that humans eyes have never seen before? I don’t think so!  
  
Speaking of colors, one of the first things I did with these new eyes of mine is actually figure out what I look like.  
  
I look like The psychedelic lava-lamp ghost of an amoeba as seen by someone on hard drugs.  
  
Seriously, I’m normally a sort of light blue color, with little globs of purple and black floating around inside of me… But sometime the globs of purple swell up and I become entirely purple for a bit, or I break into a bunch of different shades of blue and other colors that don’t have names. I’ve also seen some of the purple turn pink on occasion  
  
Sometimes I glow in the dark too, which looks pretty neat!  
  
As for my shape… Well when I’m not trying to actively have specific appendages and the like… I’m just a blob of goo with a vaguely humanoid upper body sticking out.  
  
It’s like I’m trying to look human, but then the goo just gives up after making a very basic upper body.  
  
I’ve got no legs or hips or pelvis to speak of... just a bunch of slime, that I can sort of crawl or slither around on.  
  
I have arms, but instead of hands and fingers they just end in blobs of goo, I have a head and neck, but I don’t really have facial features besides little dents where the eyes should be!  
  
Oh yeah, I also have a bunch of eyeballs on my body… But none of them are in the one place they're supposed to go!  
  
I may have gone a bit overboard with them and never actually made them grow only in a specific place… So now I have like eight different eyeballs scattered across me.  
  
At least I managed to get one sorta close, with it being smack in the middle of my “Forehead”  
  
Honestly It’s kinda disturbing, but… I don’t want to fix it because then I would have to take all the eyeballs off…  
  
I don’t want to go back into the dark.  
  
Well at least I can see in all directions now! I can even move my eyeballs around my body.  
  
I don’t actually have any organs or anything like that, my eyes just kinda... hook up to the rest of the slime I’m made of to get their oxygen and send me what they see.  
  
Turns out that my whole body _is_ my brain… or something like that.  
  
Finally there’s my hair… or there was my hair.  
  
Where my long black hair used to be, there’s now only, you guessed it! a blob of fucking goo! That sorta kinda looks like hair, but definitely isn’t…  
  
I liked my hair, It was just like mom’s… and now it’s gone.  
  
I think I’m going to go back to sleep for a while.  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
It’s me again.  
  
I get that I’m really just thinking to myself, Not even actually talking, because I don’t have a mouth or a throat or vocal chords… But I _need_ to talk.  
  
Before… everything, Highschool, Emma, the bullies… before all that I used to talk a lot, “Motormouth” is what they called me.  
  
But when mom died my world fell apart, I became depressed, I felt like nothing would ever be good again. So I went quiet for awhile, and just when things started looking better, when I was starting to be happy again…  
  
Well Emma decided to turn on me, and two years of bullying, two years of no one being willing to listen to me, of mockery, of insults, and of attacks if I tried to fight back.  
  
They had silenced me.  
  
But after everything I’ve been through in the last few… however long it’s been?  
  
Fuck Winslow, Fuck the Teachers, Fuck the Bullies!  
  
And **_Fuck_** Emma Barnes, traitorous bitch that she is!  
  
I’m going to talk all I want, about whatever I want! Whenever I want! Even if it’s only to myself!  
  
Sad and pathetic it may be! But at least it’s sad and pathetic in the way I choose to be!  
  
Fuck anyone who won’t listen when I speak! Why should I care what they think? They’re nothing at all! Just a bunch of **_Component Parts_** Idiots! ** _._  
**  
…  
…  
…  
  
That felt nice.  
  
I’ve been needing to vent a bit I guess.  
  
Anyways I’ve been doing some more experimenting with my powers… and I’ve learned some neat things.  
  
Like the fact that I don’t have to turn all of me into a rock.  
  
I actually started thinking of it when I woke up from my nap, I’ve known for awhile that I turn into some sort of rocky thing when I sleep... most of the time I purposefully didn't do that inside of the shark, and that should have been what alerted me to this to begin with.  
  
But I assumed that it was just some sort of defense mechanism, like a turtle receding into its shell.  
  
But as it turns out I can do it whenever I want if I just focus on it, and it only happens to the parts of me that I want it to happen too.  
  
It’s actually really pretty, a nice smooth, black, crystalline stone with a dark blue sheen, with little spikes and veins of glowing blue and purple scattered throughout the whole thing.  
  
Unfortunately... I cannot move when I turn entirely into a rock, So no stone form for me.  
  
But it did give me an idea!  
  
I pulled out some of my various bits of human DNA and built myself a skeleton out of the rocky stuff!  
  
I mean, now I may look like even more of a horror monster than before, Being a pitch black skeleton inside a humanoid mass of glowing blue and purple slime with random eyeballs scattered about… but hey, At least I have legs now, and fingers, can’t forget the fingers!  
  
Also… Mom wherever you are now, I know you told me that real beauty is on the inside… But I kinda went ahead and used some of my other sets of human DNA to give me a bone structure that’s a bit… Hippier?  
  
I mean there might be no point to that… Since I still look like something out of a horror movie or a monster from some high fantasy series… But still, strive to be the best you that you can be and all that…  
  
The best me just happens to actually look like a girl instead of a scarecrow.  
  
Still not happy about my “Hair” though, I Can’t get it to be wavy, or to break into separate, thin strands… So I kind of just have a long curtain of blue slime running from the top of my skull to the middle of my back right now.  
  
Still better than before though. I can actually bear to look at it now.  
  
Now! Finally I can move on to more important things than my own vanity!  
  
Actual superhero stuff that I can do with my power!  
  
Today I managed to answer a question I’ve had for a little while.  
  
I’ve been eating things for a while now, some of those things were rather large, I’ve also been losing bits of my body that occasionally drip off. Yet despite all that... I never seem to actually change size?  
  
Yeah, that's because I’m bigger on the inside.  
  
Or maybe I can access a pocket dimension… one of the two.  
  
Point is, most of “Me” is actually somewhere else, or maybe in the same place but in spatial dimensions that regular humans don’t really bother with… Which handily explains why I didn’t put on something like a thousand pounds after eating that shark.  
  
But if I want to, I can put on all that extra weight… as more goo in my body.  
  
Tentacles were one of the first proper structures I figured out how to make, Now I can make really big tentacles… Strong ones too, Since I crushed a steel drum like a tin can with just one of them!  
  
So super strength, malleable gooey body, and shapeshifting… I mean it’s no Alexandria… but it’s not the worst power ever either!  
  
That’s right, just keep looking on the bright side! Just put your all into everything you do and everything will turn out fine eventually…  
  
Dad used to say something like that when things were going hard for him at work...  
  
I see that I forgot to put in tear ducts…  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
I think I’m starting to get the gist of what my powers are about.  
  
I absorb things, then I can mimic, modify, and mix and match pieces of those things to do stuff with.  
  
Now that’s fairly obviously what I’ve been doing all this time with DNA and stuff, the slime making up my body just seems to be able to mimic the structures of biology at will.  
  
Well not necessarily at will, because I've had a hell of time making it become some things, but you get my point!  
  
But I recently found out that I could totally do that with non living things too.  
  
I've mentioned before that I have this sort of “Mental Sense” of the various genomes I have access too, but along with that were a bunch of various unknown things that I never really figured out the purpose of.  
  
Mostly because the few times I messed with them they didn’t seem to do anything at all.  
  
Until I tried again today anyway…  
  
This time I turned into a steel statue for a while.  
  
Yeah, my body scanned all the steel I ate from the boat the same way it does to anything else I eat, now I can mimic Steel, along with the Iron and Carbon that make up steel.  
  
Well it acts like steel or iron or carbon, and even looks like steel or iron or carbon… but it is Always Black with a blue or purple sheen.  
  
I’m sort of tempted to play around with the structures of the atoms and stuff… I think I remember reading something about carbon being able to do all sorts of interesting things.  
  
But then again that sounds like it could take a lot of trial and error that I could avoid by hitting a few chemistry books… So I think I’ll wait on that.  
  
But I am having a few ideas of what to do with this new found facet of my abilities. There is a whole lot of metal just lying around here in the boat graveyard after all…  
  
But that can wait.  
  
Oh also, I either have a controllable brightness setting for my glowing, or I’m doing something wrong with one of the other unknowns.  
  
Because right now all it does is make me glow really brightly, heat up, and then I get really hungry and tired.  
  
I hope this just means that whatever this thing does, it just needs more energy than I can give it right now.  
  
Because just having a controllable brightness setting would be kind of disappointing.  
  
Well… I’m hungry and tired now, So I’m going back into the bay to catch some food, then I’m gonna sleep.  
  
Tomorrow I’m going to leave this old boat and go see dad again.  
  
No matter what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's the end of the current chapter folks!
> 
> Remember I love feedback, criticism and praise equally, so give me some comments please!
> 
> Oh and if you like my stuff then you might be interested to know that I have a patreon page! If you like the things I write, then maybe consider donating so I don't have to be a wage slave for the rest of my life!
> 
> URL for my patreon is...
> 
> https://www.patreon.com/Visv
> 
> Alright, that's just about it! See you next chapter!


	5. Larvae: First Breath

Using the storm drains and sewers to travel has become significantly less appealing now that I can see properly.  
  
It almost makes me regret my improved night vision… Then again if I didn’t have that I might’ve been stuck wandering blind down here.  
  
On second thought I definitely do not regret the night vision.  
  
It would be kind of hard to navigate by night if I couldn’t see, and I kind of have too travel by night…  
  
It’s the only time dad would reliably be at home, I couldn’t just go barging into the DWU offices looking the way I do now could I?  
  
That would not end well.  
  
That’s why I left my boat a little bit before Sunset, hopefully that would give me enough time to actually get home before he went to sleep.  
  
I doubt he would react very well to waking to… me.  
  
Well at least not as I am right now.  
  
Note to self… Figure out actual skin, as in, skin that isn’t transparent.  
  
Probably should have done that before I set out on this little adventure… Along with working vocal chords.  
  
I actually fiddled around a bit with those before I set out, but the only sounds I managed to make were… gloopy.  
  
In hindsight this whole expedition may be a bad idea…  
  
But I’m committed now! I’ve already left the boat and entered the sewers! It’s too late to turn back!  
  
Now what street am I underneath exactly? I started out in the Boat Graveyard… So I should be heading southwest to get home…  
  
Oh good, I’m beneath Market Street, so I’m heading in the right direction.  
  
From here I just need to go south until I hit the boardwalk, then It will just be straight west through the docks to get home.  
  
I’m… actually feeling excited.  
  
Me and dad had… drifted apart a bit after mom…  
  
The point is we had drifted apart, we barely even talked.  
  
I had never told him about what had been going on at Winslow either, I didn’t want him to worry you know? It’s not like he could have done much about it…  
  
In hindsight maybe he could have, and I was just being stupid.  
  
As for not worrying about me? Yeah I bet that worked out after I vanished for… You know what? I am really tempted to break into somewhere with a working computer and get a look at the date.  
  
The point is, That my vanishing act on the first day back from winter break means that I’ve definitely failed at the whole “Not worrying dad” thing.  
  
I mean, I think I had some pretty good reasons and justifications for why I didn’t go home immediately.  
  
I mean how would you react if you passed out during the school day as a human stuck in a locker full of crud, and then, when you next woke up, you were a pile of goo in a random bush?  
  
I may have panicked a little bit, had a bit of a freakout over my new state of being… But could anyone blame me?  
  
This has only gotten freakier as time has gone by, I’ve just adapted to the weirdness.  
  
Oh hey! If reading this right, I’m passing under the northern ferry station! I wonder if dad has made any progress on getting the ferry fixed up?  
  
…  
…  
…  
  
Oh wait! That would cost the rich folks downtown some money in taxes to help out us folk in the docks and Mayor Christner couldn’t have that could he?  
  
I think some of dad’s bitterness over that whole thing may have rubbed off on me.  
  
Well fuck you Mayor Christner! I don’t need a ferry to get me across the bay! I have tentacles! And I bet I could make my goo into a fish tail if I really wanted to!  
  
Oh shit… I can fulfill that fantasy that every little girl has had at least once and be a mermaid!  
  
A nightmarish gooey mermaid whose skeleton could be seen through her transparent glowing skin…  
  
I fail to stifle the giggles I get when I imagine some hunky sailor man (Or cute sailor woman!) trying to woo my current self… except with a fish tail in place of legs.  
  
But because I don’t have a proper mouth, a throat, or vocal cords, all that happens is the goo at the front of my “Face” bubbles up into glowing blue froth and makes this weird staticky gurgling noise.  
  
Close enough!  
…  
…  
...  
Oh hey! I think I’ve made it to the boardwalk! Shouldn’t be too much further now!  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
The rest of my trip through the combined sewer system of Brockton Bay isn’t very eventful. I mean I ate a few more rats… As well as what I think may have once been an illegal pet Alligator, before it either escaped or was released anyways.  
  
New genetics to play around with aside, nothing much happens after I leave the area beneath the boardwalk.  
  
Honestly that’s pretty convenient, nothing got between me and my real goal.  
  
Now I was almost free of this fucking sewer! Just had to one more thing…  
  
Gently now… Gently…  
  
I carefully pop the manhole cover open, _just_ wide enough that the one eye in my “Forehead” can see through the slit.  
  
The sun is almost completely down at this point, just a bare glimmer of light along the horizon… but for my new eyes it's plenty of light to see by.  
  
Yeah Small houses, peeling paint, clearly not very wealthy… this is my neighborhood alright!  
  
That should mean that my home is right over…  
  
There we go!  
I actually freeze up a bit as I look at my childhood home and I feel my eyes begin to leak.  
  
It’s been such a long time it seems… But I’m Finally Back!  
  
It takes me a few moments to pull myself back together, not literally, after I process that… It was like I was holding a boulder on my shoulders and suddenly it was gone!  
  
I’m Home! I’m _Home_!  
  
…  
…  
…  
  
I violently shudder my goo body, like a normal person might shake their head to snap out of a fugue or wake themselves up… except my entire body does it.  
  
Focus Taylor! I can have a breakdown later! I still have things I need to do right now!  
  
From the lack of a truck in the driveway, I’m pretty sure dad isn’t home yet. That’s good, gives me time to get what I need.  
  
I temporarily dissolve my skeleton, pull my eyes under a layer of goo, and flatten out my body as I ooze out from under the manhole cover. I just really hope I’m not glowing too brightly right now… Don’t need anyone seeing me and freaking out after all.  
  
I slither on the concrete of the street then into the grass of our front lawn, up the steps, dodging the second one on reflex.  
  
Finally I _squeeze_ myself through the narrow space under the front door.  
  
You know? There was a time where I would have said this place felt empty, like it had just had its soul ripped out after mom… was gone.  
  
But after being gone, after being alone and trapped in the dark for so long… Even without mom, Home could still be warm. This home still had some light.  
  
I needed a pen and paper, So I could talk to dad, tell him that I was okay, that I missed him and I love him and that I wouldn’t hide things from him anymore.  
  
Dad had withdrawn and become distant ever since mom had gone… But that just meant I needed to woman up and pull him out of his shell!  
  
I finished reforming my skeleton and humanoid shape just in time to give a firm nod to that idea.  
  
Legs and feet are yet another thing I’ve missed for these past few days, slithering about or swimming around with tentacles was fun and all, but sometimes I just need to stretch my legs and have legs to stretch!  
  
And stretch them I will! I take a moment to just wander around my home, refamiliarizing myself with it after so long away!  
  
There was the wall where we hung all the pictures, and over there was dad’s favorite morning chair! The fake christmas tree was still up… Guess dad never thought about taking it down, and over there was the couch where mom used to read to me!  
  
So many happy memories!... and a lot of not so happy ones.  
  
But still! This place used to be warm, and vibrant! It could be all that again! It would be all that again! I would talk to dad and we would fix everything, and then we would be a family again!  
  
Mom would have wanted it that way and I want it to be like that too!  
  
Now where did dad put the paper?  
  
I’m shaken out of my nostalgia and my search for paper by the sound of a car pulling up in front of the house.  
  
My body pulls in on itself, my form appearing smaller… Is this what I do when I get surprised now?  
  
No nevermind! Dad is home! _Dad is home and I still look like a fucking alien or something!_  
  
Quick Taylor think of a plan!  
  
On reflex I open a nearby door and hurl myself… Into an old closet.  
  
Okay I guess I’m hiding here now.  
  
My eyes are pretty good, but they can’t see through solid objects like the door or walls of this closet.  
  
Thankfully just because I have eyes now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t still have the Electroheat vision!  
  
In an instant my regular view of a dusty closet is supplemented by odd blooms that I associated with various temperatures and the tracings of the pathways electrical energy used to move through the walls and the nervous systems of any living creatures…  
  
We have _way_ more bugs in our walls than I would have liked to know about.  
  
A human shaped bloom of heat and electricity walked into the house, it was tall and lanky…  
  
It was my dad.  
  
I want so very much to just throw this door right open and hug him and hold him close and never ever ever let him go ever again.  
  
But I don’t… because I would probably just give him a heart attack with the way I look right now.  
  
So I just sit here, in this closet, watching the vaguely humanoid blob of heat and electrical signals that is my dad move about the house, his boots clunking on the floor as he goes.  
  
He moves around a bit, I can only assume to pour himself a drink, then he sits down in his chair, and… hunches over?  
  
It kinda looks like he’s reading something.  
  
Bringing the work home with you dad? He needs to rest more.  
  
It’s around the time dad has a second glass of… whatever it is, and also around the time that I reject a fourth plan to leave the closet and approach him, that I notice something else in my Electroheat vision.  
  
Above us, probably on the second floor of the house, a Thin hazy cloud of… something drifts into the house through one of the walls.  
  
Then it promptly compresses down into a familiar shape, electrical pathways blazing to life within the suddenly significantly hotter mass.  
  
It was shaped like a human.  
  
Someone had somehow gotten into the house.  
  
And the method they had used to get in…  
  
My body curls in on itself again, dread dawning upon me along with the realization.  
  
 _Another_ _parahuman was in the house._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's the end of the current chapter folks!
> 
> Remember I love feedback, criticism and praise equally, so give me some comments please!
> 
> Oh and if you like my stuff then you might be interested to know that I have a patreon page! If you like the things I write, then maybe consider donating so I don't have to be a wage slave for the rest of my life!
> 
> URL for my patreon is...
> 
> https://www.patreon.com/Visv
> 
> Alright, that's just about it! See you next chapter!


	6. Larvae: First Struggle

I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe (okay so I can’t breathe anyway but still!) I could barely even think.  
  
Why was a parahuman in the house? Who were they? What did they want?  
  
All of these thoughts and more were rushing through my brain, but before I could even begin to process them the figure became a hazy mist of heat once more…  
  
Then fell through the floor to land in front of Dad, reforming into a person in an instant.  
  
I hear my dad shout in surprise, even as I see his heat blob jump out the chair.  
  
The unknown cape approached my father, and I heard them, _her_ , speak for the first time.  
  
“Should have just kept your mouth shut.”  
  
The voice is familiar to me… It’s distorted by what I can only assume is a mask but all the same I _know_ that I’ve heard that voice before.  
  
I dismiss those thoughts, at what I see happen next.  
  
 _The cape tries to attack my dad._  
  
I can’t see very clearly with the heat sense but i can tell that the cape had just tried to punch dad, and from the shout I think she succeeded.  
  
His chair flips over onto its back and my father scrambles to his feet while clutching his face.  
  
The cape looks ready to attack again.  
  
But I’m done just watching.  
  
Not even bothering with the knob, I fling myself at the door, and my gooey body compresses bit before pushing right through, turning the wood into so many splinters suspended and melting in my body.  
  
The unknown cape… Haven’t I seen that costume somewhere before? Nevermind, the unknown cape looks to the side right before I collide with her.  
  
I ram into her body with all the force my inhuman body can muster… and it actually works a lot better than I thought!  
  
The unknown cape is knocked right off her feet and slams into the opposite wall with a loud bang.  
  
I hear her snarl a harsh “What the fuck?!” as she tries to pull herself up off the floor, only to let out a shaky moan and fall back to the ground, a scream of pain abruptly starting and stopping as her chest hits the floor, only to be replaced by the sound of pained, labored breathing.  
  
Looking her over, I’m satisfied that she’s not going to be getting back up, so I turn around and begin to search for my dad.  
  
Apparently I’d knocked him onto the ground when I had charged the unknown cape, because there he was laying there, clutching at his face… Was his nose broken?  
  
I rushed over to his side to.. check on him? Hug him? Tell Him I’m back and I’m not going to leave him?  
  
I’m not even sure what I want to do, but I desperately want to hold onto him… So I Do.  
  
Unfortunately, I forgot what I looked like right now, because the moment I meet my dad’s eyes, he starts thrashing and trying to scream through a broken nose and… That bitch broke his jaw!  
  
My anger can’t last very long compared to the deluge of sadness that comes next as I realize why he’s thrashing and trying to get away from me.  
  
He’s afraid.  
  
And that is everything that _I’ve been afraid of_ ever since I woke up, free from the locker, and looking like _this._  
  
The realization hurts me more than I’ve felt in years… more than I’ve ever hurt since mom died…  
  
Desperately I reach back into my power and mentally grab on to the DNA that I _know_ was mine, that belonged to the body I was born with instead of this… _thing_ I’ve been forced into.  
  
With every ounce of will I can bring to bear I _pull_ on my former self, desperately wanting my father to see his daughter looking over him, instead of a monster.  
  
I want that look of fear on his face to go away and never come back.  
  
But my power resists, It’s as if some sort of titanic being is holding tight onto what I used to be, trying to keep me from reclaiming it.  
  
In the depths of my mind, I _scream_ at the thing who would deny me.  
  
 _Fuck you! Let me have this! Let my dad see me without being scared!_  
  
Then I for a moment I _wrench_ my old genome loose… But not all the way.  
  
I prepare myself for a mental tug of war with my own fucking powers to get reclaim the rest of me when…  
  
“Ta… Taahlor?”  
  
I hear my name whisper its way out of a damaged jaw, muffled and distorted, but it’s my name all the same… and I turn outwards again to focus on the world outside my power.  
  
Whatever I had pulled free I must have changed into it by default, because my Dad’s panicked attempts to get away from me suddenly stop, he goes calm.  
  
 _He looks so happy to see me again._  
  
In my relief I lose my grip on my old DNA, and I know I revert back from whatever shape I had taken to the one I had before.  
  
But dad… Dad isn’t scared anymore.  
  
He knows it’s me.  
  
My many eyes begin to tear up and I lunge forward wrapping my gooey form around my father in a full body hug.  
  
It seems like it’s been such a long time, But I’m home now! I’m finally home and hugging my dad again and it feels so…  
  
A loud noise, and something small and fast passes through my membrane.  
  
I feel blood pour onto me even as my body begins to eat the crossbow bolt that had just sprouted out from my father’s chest.  
  
My world goes cold and I freeze in place.  
  
My eyes move across the surface of my body to look behind me.  
  
The cape is standing on shaky legs, her breathing is still pained behind her stern mask.  
  
She’s holding a crossbow in her hands.  
  
The room fills with a bright blue glow. Motes of black and glowing purple drift off my skin, filling my vision alongside the **_monster/enemy/components_** in front of me.  
Without thinking I blindly reach back into my mind and _pull._  
  
What trial and error failed to achieve, blind rage does easily.  
  
Along my face a mouth rips open, great fangs lining the insides of it.  
  
It takes me a moment to realize that I’m the one making the Gurgling Shrieking staticy roar that fills the room and rattles the walls.  
  
The cape, _Shadow Stalker_ my memory finally supplies, turns to shadow right before my newly grown tentacles reach her body.  
  
They punch a whole clean through the wall instead.  
  
She turns solid again only a few feet away, groaning in pain, but still standing.  
  
She won’t be standing up for much longer if I have anything to say about it.  
  
She had hurt my father, I’m going to **_Kill/Eat/Consume_** her for that.  
  
The other cape is not idle though, and another crossbow bolt is loaded and fired with the speed and ease of long experience, and hits me in the center of my face.  
  
The bolt stops dead against my “Skull” and the rest of the bolt is pulled into my body and broken down.  
  
Once more I send tentacles to reply in kind and once more the **_bitch_** melts into shadow.  
  
A desk lamp shatters into pieces under the blow, a discharge of errant electricity travels up one of my tendrils and is absorbed into my body.  
  
I feel something stir in the back of my mind as the buzz of electricity moving through me finally fades away... something that _insists_ on being used.  
  
I yank on it with my mind even as I launch another tendril at the now fleeing **_murderer._  
**  
I feel a warmth, a thrumming, pulsing heat inside of me, this time the tendril that I fling towards my prey glows brighter than ever, flares of blue and black bubbling and bursting out of the azure ooze to form a flaming corona or crackling energy.  
  
Once more Shadow Stalker calls upon her power in an attempt to phase through a nearby wall… to escape.  
  
I rage at the thought of her managing to get away, at the idea that I won’t even be able to _touch her_ after what she did is infuriating!  
  
Then my glowing tendril makes contact, All I see is a flash of blue light, I hear the separate crackles of both fire and electricity, and finally an outpouring of floating, black and purple particles fills the room.  
  
Then I hear a scream.  
  
My tendril finally wraps firmly around an arm made of nothing but flesh and bone.  
  
Then I _Squeeze._  
  
The bitches skin tears apart, her muscles are shredded, and her bones are crushed into a fine powder, blood oozes out of the devastated limb and into my mass.  
  
The screaming redoubles, and it feels so _good_! She hurt my dad! I want her to **_suffer, I want her to suffer and never stop!!_  
**  
Shadow stalker screams once more and futilely tries to pull away from my grasp.  
  
I just clamp down even harder.  
  
Finally the burning haze of black and blue around my extended arm, _around my entire body,_ fades away.  
  
Whatever force that had kept Shadow Stalker from using her power left along with it, and with a final scream and a fierce pull the darkly clad, murderous cape phases into the substance of shadows and escapes through the wall.  
  
How generous of her to leave her arm behind.  
  
Even as I digest what I had taken from the homicidal parahuman, a sinking cold permeates my body, and an overwhelming tiredness batters at my mind.  
  
My anger gutters out and dies...  
  
Only to immediately flare again when I realize that I _recognize_ the DNA that I’m getting from Shadow Stalker’s destroyed arm.  
  
It matches with one of the earliest DNA samples I’ve ever taken.  
  
 _Taken from the blood in the locker._  
  
 _Shadow Stalker was one of my bullies._  
  
My rage grows to towering new heights when I remember that Shadow Stalker was a member of _The Wards,_ that she was a _hero!_  
  
 ** _A Hero was one of my bullies!_  
  
 _A Hero had tried to kill my dad!..._  
  
 _…  
…  
…_  
**  
Dad!  
  
I immediately turn my attention back to my father, still bleeding out on the floor, his breath’s are labored and gurgling and I don’t know what to do and he’s still bleeding and…  
  
I violently shake my body to regain my focus.  
  
I slam a tendril down onto the chest wound, desperately trying to keep the blood inside of him.  
  
I remember that we have a landline phone and frantically stretch a portion of myself towards it, grabbing it up in my goo and frantically pushing nine-one-one as I bring it to my mouth.  
  
“ _Nine-one-one operator, what is your emergency?”_  
  
I desperately begin to speak… but then I realize  
  
…  
…  
…  
  
I still don’t have vocal cords.  
  
 _I still don’t have vocal cords!_  
  
Frantic gurgling nonsense leaves the monstrosity of a mouth I had formed out of rage, but its not anything intelligible, and even as the operator questions me and then grows irritated believing me to be a prank call I keep trying to say something, _anything,_ that will get my dad the help he needs.  
  
But I don’t have vocal cords, and so it’s all for nothing.  
  
My father’s eyes are closed now, and he looks so pale, and it’s all I can do just to use my tendrils to plug his wound.  
  
He has to **_live,_** he **_has to!_  
**  
I don’t know how long I spend just sitting there plugging my father’s wound, cradling him and babbling nonsensical gibberish.  
  
But eventually the sound of sirens and the rumbling of a motorcycle that is familiar to any long time resident of brockton bay shakes me out of whatever trance I had fallen into.  
  
It is only now that I remember that, Murderous bullying bitch or not, I had still maimed a ward.  
  
 _And now Armsmaster is coming and he’s going to lock me away and they’ll just believe the bullies like always… and and…_  
  
 _I had to get out of here._  
  
But I couldn’t just leave dad here! No I can’t, I can’t!  
  
But if I stay they’ll lock me up...  
  
 _It’s dark and cold and filthy and things are wriggling against my skin and it stinks! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT PLEASE! But they just laugh and leave me there and…_  
  
I panic and pull myself away from my dad, barely even noticing the piece of me that breaks off and stays in the wound.  
  
I won’t be trapped in the dark and cold again, no, never again, I’d rather die.  
  
I plow through the front door of my house reducing it to splinters in the process and surge out onto the street a rising unstoppable tide of glowing blue slime, I reach the manhole cover just in time to see Armsmaster’s bike make it around the corner, the rumbling of its engine filling my mind.  
  
I dissolve my skeleton and force myself under the manhole cover, back into the sewers.  
  
It’s only after I am far away from there, somewhere under the train yard, that I finally stop and truly process what all had just happened tonight.  
  
I collapse to the filthy concrete ground of the storm drain, my skeleton dissolving back into the slime as my whole body begins to shudder and convulse in great heaving sobs.  
  
 _It’s not fair! I.. I had finally made it home!_  
  
 _I’m sorry daddy! I’m so sorry!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's the end of the current chapter folks!
> 
> Remember I love feedback, criticism and praise equally, so give me some comments please!
> 
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> 
> URL for my patreon is...
> 
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> 
> Alright, that's just about it! See you next chapter!


	7. Larvae: First Resolve

I‌ ‌‌hurt.‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌hurt‌ ‌so‌ ‌much.‌ ‌  
‌  
My‌ ‌Tendrils‌ ‌and‌ ‌tentacles‌ ‌and‌ ‌arms‌ ‌flail‌ ‌and‌ ‌thrash‌ ‌about‌ ‌  
‌  
A‌ ‌steel‌ ‌pipe‌ ‌is‌ ‌tied‌ ‌up‌ ‌like‌ ‌a‌ ‌pretzel‌ ‌and‌ ‌then‌ ‌ripped‌ ‌in‌ ‌half.‌ ‌  
‌  
It’s‌ ‌not‌ ‌fair!‌ ‌I‌ ‌was‌ ‌so‌ ‌close!‌ ‌I‌ ‌was‌ ‌home!‌ ‌I‌ ‌was‌ ‌finally‌ ‌home!‌ ‌  
‌  
A‌ ‌Hunk‌ ‌of‌ ‌concrete‌ ‌is‌ ‌ripped‌ ‌out‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌ground‌ ‌and‌ ‌dashed‌ ‌against‌ ‌the‌ ‌walls‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌tunnel‌ ‌until‌ ‌there‌ ‌was‌ ‌nothing‌ ‌but‌ ‌powder‌ ‌left.‌ ‌  
‌  
Then‌ ‌that‌ ‌bitch‌ ‌shows‌ ‌up!‌ ‌She‌ ‌Shot‌ ‌my‌ ‌dad!‌ ‌She‌ ‌killed‌ ‌my‌ ‌daddy!‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌form‌ ‌more‌ ‌tentacles‌ ‌that‌ ‌lash‌ ‌out‌ ‌at‌ ‌the‌ ‌world‌ ‌around‌ ‌me,‌ ‌they‌ ‌sprout‌ ‌metallic‌ ‌thorns‌ ‌and‌ ‌gnashing‌ ‌shrieking‌ ‌mouths‌ ‌and‌ ‌carve‌ ‌deep‌ ‌gouges‌ ‌into‌ ‌the‌ ‌concrete‌ ‌and‌ ‌steel‌ ‌around‌ ‌me.‌ ‌  
‌  
And‌ ‌I‌ ‌couldn’t‌ ‌even‌ ‌keep‌ ‌her‌ ‌from‌ ‌running‌ ‌away!‌ ‌  
‌  
It‌ ‌hurts‌ ‌so‌ ‌much!‌ ‌ ‌  
‌  
My‌ ‌body‌ ‌explodes‌ ‌outward‌ ‌into‌ ‌a‌ ‌mess‌ ‌of‌ ‌sharp‌ ‌gooey‌ ‌spines,‌ ‌punching‌ ‌who‌ ‌knows‌ ‌how‌ ‌many‌ ‌holes‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌walls‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌drainage‌ ‌tunnel‌ ‌I’ve‌ ‌come‌ ‌to‌ ‌lie‌ ‌in.‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌stay‌ ‌like‌ ‌that,‌ ‌my‌ ‌body‌ ‌dissolving‌ ‌the‌ ‌concrete‌ ‌and‌ ‌steel‌ ‌and‌ ‌filthy‌ ‌water‌ ‌for‌ ‌a‌ ‌time‌ ‌and‌ ‌adding‌ ‌it‌ ‌to‌ ‌my‌ ‌body,‌ ‌before‌ ‌I‌ ‌finally‌ ‌pull‌ ‌myself‌ ‌together‌ ‌and‌ ‌contract‌ ‌myself‌ ‌into‌ ‌a‌ ‌tight‌ ‌little‌ ‌ball‌ ‌to‌ ‌shiver‌ ‌and‌ ‌sob‌ ‌on‌ ‌the‌ ‌floor‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ tunnel.‌ ‌  
‌  
I’m‌ ‌not‌ ‌sure‌ ‌that‌ ‌I‌ ‌can‌ ‌put‌ ‌it‌ ‌into‌ ‌words…‌ ‌I’m‌ ‌tired‌ ‌of‌ ‌being‌ ‌sad.‌ ‌  
‌  
For‌ ‌me,‌ ‌ever‌ ‌since‌ ‌mom‌ ‌died,‌ ‌the‌ ‌world‌ ‌had‌ ‌been‌ ‌becoming‌ ‌colder‌ ‌and‌ ‌crueler‌ ‌little‌ ‌by‌ ‌little,‌ and‌ ‌the‌ ‌last‌ ‌few…‌ ‌days?‌ ‌Weeks?‌ ‌Months?‌ ‌Had‌ ‌been‌ ‌the‌ ‌very‌ ‌worst,‌ ‌It‌ ‌had‌ ‌so‌ ‌bad‌ ‌that‌ ‌the‌ years‌ ‌before‌ ‌had‌ ‌appeared‌ ‌kind‌ ‌by‌ ‌comparison.‌ ‌  
‌  
Like‌ ‌going‌ ‌from‌ ‌the‌ ‌surface‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌sea,‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌very‌ ‌bottom‌ ‌where‌ ‌no‌ ‌light‌ ‌shone‌ ‌and‌ ‌the‌ ‌sun’s‌ ‌warmth‌ ‌could‌ ‌not‌ ‌reach.‌ ‌  
‌  
To‌ ‌have‌ ‌spent‌ ‌so‌ ‌long‌ ‌alone,‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌dark‌ ‌and‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌cold‌ ‌that‌ ‌my‌ ‌powers‌ ‌left‌ ‌me‌ ‌stuck‌ ‌in,‌ ‌living‌ ‌in‌ ‌a‌ monstrous‌ ‌body‌ ‌that‌ ‌wasn’t‌ ‌mine.‌ ‌  
‌  
To‌ ‌hide‌ ‌in‌ ‌alleys,‌ ‌eating‌ ‌rats‌ ‌and‌ ‌bugs,‌ ‌traveling‌ ‌via‌ ‌the‌ ‌sewers,‌ ‌unable‌ ‌to‌ ‌‌see‌ ‌or‌ ‌be‌ ‌seen‌‌ ‌by‌ ‌anyone‌ for‌ ‌fear‌ ‌of‌ ‌their‌ ‌reaction,‌ ‌of‌ ‌their‌ ‌rejection...‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌was‌ ‌lonely,‌ ‌I‌ ‌was‌ ‌scared,‌ ‌and‌ ‌I‌ ‌was‌ ‌so,‌ ‌‌so‌ ‌‌sad.‌ ‌ ‌  
‌  
But‌ ‌Then…‌ ‌Then‌ ‌I‌ ‌came‌ ‌home!‌ ‌Everything‌ ‌was‌ ‌going‌ ‌to‌ ‌be‌ ‌good‌ ‌again!‌ ‌Dad‌ ‌had‌ ‌recognized‌ ‌me,‌ ‌I‌ was‌ ‌going‌ ‌to‌ ‌be‌ ‌warm‌ ‌and‌ ‌the‌ ‌world‌ ‌would‌ ‌be‌ ‌bright‌ ‌and‌ ‌I‌ ‌would‌ ‌talk‌ ‌to‌ ‌dad‌ ‌and‌ ‌we‌ ‌would‌ ‌fix‌ everything‌ ‌that‌ ‌had‌ ‌gone‌ ‌wrong‌ ‌even‌ ‌if‌ ‌it‌ ‌killed‌ ‌us!‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌was‌ ‌so‌ ‌close‌ ‌to‌ ‌being‌ ‌happy‌ ‌again.‌ ‌  
‌  
Then…‌ ‌  
‌  
Then‌ ‌‌that‌ ‌bitch‌‌ ‌showed‌ ‌up!‌ ‌She‌ ‌hurt‌ ‌my‌ ‌dad!‌ ‌So‌ ‌I‌ ‌fought‌ ‌her‌ ‌and‌ ‌I‌ ‌won‌ ‌and‌ ‌all‌ ‌I‌ ‌got‌ ‌from‌ ‌the‌ ‌victory‌ ‌was‌ ‌the‌ ‌taste‌ ‌of‌ ‌ashes‌ ‌on‌ ‌my‌ ‌tongue!‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌learned‌ ‌that‌ ‌heroes‌ ‌were‌ ‌a‌ ‌lie!‌ ‌That‌ ‌they‌ ‌had‌ ‌just‌ ‌let‌ ‌one‌ ‌of‌ ‌their‌ ‌own‌ ‌hurt‌ ‌me‌ ‌so‌ ‌much!‌ ‌  
‌  
And‌ ‌I‌ ‌tried‌ ‌my‌ ‌best‌ ‌to‌ ‌help‌ ‌dad,‌ ‌but‌ ‌I‌ ‌couldn’t‌ ‌do‌ ‌anything‌ ‌at‌ ‌all!‌ ‌I‌ ‌couldn’t‌ ‌even‌ ‌cry‌ ‌for‌ ‌help‌ ‌and‌ ‌when‌ ‌the‌ ‌sirens‌ ‌came,‌ ‌I‌ ‌ran‌ ‌away‌ ‌because‌ ‌I‌ ‌was‌ ‌scared…‌ ‌and‌ ‌I‌ ‌just‌ ‌left‌ ‌him‌ ‌lying‌ ‌there‌ ‌on‌ ‌the‌ ‌floor‌ ‌to‌ ‌bleed‌ ‌out…‌ ‌  
‌  
It‌ ‌hurts‌ ‌so‌ ‌much,‌ ‌almost‌ ‌like‌ ‌I‌ ‌had‌ ‌left‌ ‌a‌ ‌part‌ ‌of‌ ‌myself‌ ‌there‌ ‌to‌ ‌die‌ ‌along‌ ‌with‌ ‌my‌ ‌dad.‌ ‌  
‌  
My‌ ‌insides‌ ‌hurt,‌ ‌though‌ ‌I‌ ‌have‌ ‌nothing‌ ‌there,‌ ‌my‌ ‌mind‌ ‌hurts‌ ‌even‌ ‌though‌ ‌I‌ ‌don’t‌ ‌have‌ ‌a‌ ‌brain anymore…‌ ‌My‌ ‌heart‌ ‌hurts‌ ‌even‌ ‌though‌ ‌it’s‌ ‌long‌ ‌gone.‌ ‌  
‌  
No‌ ‌matter‌ ‌how‌ ‌hard‌ ‌I‌ ‌try,‌ ‌I‌ ‌can’t‌ ‌make‌ ‌the‌ ‌pain‌ ‌stop.‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌had‌ ‌Left‌ ‌my‌ ‌dad‌ ‌lying‌ ‌on‌ ‌the‌ ‌ground‌ ‌and‌ ‌‌bleeding‌ ‌and‌ ‌I’m‌ ‌so‌ ‌sorry‌ ‌dad,‌ _‌I’m‌ ‌so‌ ‌sorry‌ ‌for‌ ‌leaving‌ ‌and‌ ‌not‌ ‌telling‌ ‌you‌ ‌anything‌ ‌and‌ ‌never‌ ‌trying‌ ‌to‌ ‌talk‌ ‌to‌ ‌you,‌ ‌I’m‌ ‌sorry‌ ‌I‌ ‌didn’t‌ ‌just‌ ‌kill‌ ‌her‌ ‌when‌ ‌she‌ ‌was‌ ‌on‌ ‌the‌ ‌ground‌ ‌and‌ ‌that‌ ‌I‌ ‌was‌ ‌too‌ ‌stupid‌ ‌to‌ ‌make‌ ‌a‌ ‌mouth‌ ‌that‌ ‌could‌ ‌speak‌ ‌and‌ ‌that‌ ‌I‌ ‌just‌ ‌left‌ ‌you‌ ‌there‌ ‌because‌ ‌I’m‌ ‌a‌ ‌stupid‌ ‌selfish‌ ‌coward‌ ‌who‌ ‌couldn’t‌ ‌risk‌ ‌being‌ ‌trapped‌ ‌again‌ ‌even‌ ‌to‌ ‌help‌ ‌her‌ ‌dad‌ ‌and‌ I’m‌ ‌sorry‌ ‌for‌ ‌being‌ ‌such‌ ‌a‌ ‌terrible‌ ‌daughter‌ ‌and‌ ‌for‌ ‌getting‌ ‌mom‌ ‌killed‌ ‌and,‌ ‌and...‌ ‌I’m‌ ‌sorry!‌ ‌_  
‌  
 _I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorr‌yI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msor‌ryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry!‌ ‌_  
‌  
‌  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌am‌ ‌Taylor‌ ‌Anne‌ ‌Hebert.‌ ‌  
  
I‌ ‌am‌ ‌sad,‌ ‌and‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌hurting,‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌laying‌ ‌at‌ ‌the‌ ‌bottom‌ ‌of‌ ‌a‌ ‌drainage‌ ‌ditch,‌ ‌mourning‌ ‌the‌ ‌loss‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌last‌ ‌person‌ ‌who‌ ‌I‌ ‌had‌ ‌loved‌ ‌and‌ ‌who‌ ‌had‌ ‌loved‌ ‌me.‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌am‌ ‌false‌ ‌flesh‌ ‌hiding‌ ‌amongst‌ ‌the‌ ‌real,‌ ‌I‌ ‌act‌ ‌to‌ ‌pump‌ ‌blood‌ ‌and‌ ‌patch‌ ‌gaps‌ ‌for‌ ‌the‌ ‌one‌ ‌who‌ ‌needs‌ ‌it‌ ‌most.‌ ‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌am‌ ‌a‌ ‌mass‌ ‌of‌ ‌crystals‌ ‌that‌ ‌is‌ ‌slowly‌ ‌eating‌ ‌soil‌ ‌and‌ ‌stone‌ ‌and‌ ‌concrete‌ ‌and‌ ‌steel‌ ‌underneath‌ ‌an‌ ‌old‌ ‌dumpster‌ ‌to‌ ‌grow‌ ‌and‌ ‌grow‌ ‌and‌ ‌grow‌ ‌for‌ ‌the‌ ‌glory‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌greater‌ ‌“I”.‌ ‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌am‌ ‌innumerable‌ ‌fish‌ ‌and‌ ‌plankton‌ ‌and‌ ‌shrimp‌ ‌and‌ ‌crabs‌ ‌swimming‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌ocean,‌ ‌changing‌ ‌and‌n creating‌ ‌and‌ ‌growing‌ ‌new‌ ‌structures‌ ‌as‌ ‌the‌ ‌greater‌ ‌“I”‌ ‌had‌ ‌desired.‌ ‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌am‌ ‌Humans‌ ‌,‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌Worms,‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌Insects,‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌Spiders,‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌a‌ ‌Crab,‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌an‌ ‌Octopus,‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌a‌ Shark,‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌a‌ ‌Snake,‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌photosynthetic‌ ‌plankton,‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌Krill,‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌Rats,‌ ‌Cockroach’s,‌ ‌Flies,‌ ‌  
and‌ ‌Fish,‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌so‌ ‌many‌ ‌things.‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌am‌ ‌all‌ ‌of‌ ‌these‌ ‌things.‌ ‌  
‌  
And..‌ ‌If‌ ‌I‌ ‌can‌ ‌be‌ ‌all‌ ‌of‌ ‌those‌ ‌things,‌ ‌‌become‌ ‌‌all‌ ‌of‌ ‌those‌ ‌things...‌ ‌then…‌ ‌maybe‌ ‌I‌ ‌can‌ ‌become‌ something‌ ‌that‌ ‌doesn't‌ ‌hurt‌ ‌anymore?‌ ‌  
‌_  
‌  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX‌ ‌  
‌  
Eventually‌ ‌I‌ ‌wake‌ ‌up‌ ‌once‌ ‌again,‌ ‌and‌ ‌my‌ ‌dreams‌ ‌fade‌ ‌into‌ ‌a‌ ‌foggy,‌ ‌barely‌ ‌remembered‌ ‌blur.‌ ‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌feel‌ ‌empty‌ ‌and‌ ‌tired‌ ‌inside.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌don’t‌ ‌know‌‌_ ‌how‌ ‌much‌ ‌time‌ ‌has‌ ‌passed‌ ‌by‌ ‌the‌ ‌time‌ ‌I‌ ‌make‌ ‌it‌ ‌back‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ ‌boat.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌don’t‌ ‌know_ ‌‌ ‌how‌ ‌long‌ ‌I‌ ‌had‌ ‌spent‌ ‌alternating‌ ‌between‌ ‌sobbing‌ ‌and‌ ‌sleeping‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌drainage‌ tunnel.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌hadn’t‌ ‌_ known‌‌ ‌how‌ ‌to‌ ‌make‌ ‌a‌ ‌mouth‌ ‌that‌ ‌was‌ ‌able‌ ‌to‌ ‌speak‌ ‌and‌ ‌call‌ ‌someone‌ ‌to‌ ‌help‌ ‌my‌ ‌father.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌hadn’t‌ ‌known_ ‌ ‌‌how‌ ‌to‌ ‌use‌ ‌my‌ ‌powers‌ ‌to‌ ‌touch‌ ‌Shadow‌ ‌Stalker.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌don’t‌ ‌know_ ‌ ‌everything‌ ‌my‌ ‌powers‌ ‌could‌ ‌do.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌don’t‌ ‌know_ ‌ ‌how‌ ‌long‌ ‌I‌ ‌was‌ ‌out‌ ‌at‌ ‌sea‌ ‌or‌ ‌stuck‌ ‌wandering‌ ‌the‌ ‌streets.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌hadn’t‌ ‌known_ ‌ ‌why‌ ‌no‌ ‌one‌ ‌helped‌ ‌me‌ ‌at‌ ‌school.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌don’t‌ ‌know‌_ ‌why‌ ‌Emma‌ ‌abandoned‌ ‌me.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌don’t‌ ‌know.‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌hadn’t‌ ‌known‌ ‌ ‌  
‌_  
 ** _I‌ ‌DIDN’T‌ ‌KNOW.‌ ‌_  
‌**  
Because‌ ‌of‌ ‌things‌ ‌I‌ ‌did‌ ‌not‌ ‌know,‌ ‌I‌ ‌have‌ ‌been‌ ‌made‌ ‌to‌ ‌hurt.‌ ‌  
‌  
I’m‌ ‌sick‌ ‌of‌ ‌hurting.‌ ‌  
‌  
I’m‌ ‌sick‌ ‌of‌ ‌being‌ ‌hurt.‌ ‌  
‌  
I’m‌ ‌sick‌ ‌of‌ ‌this‌ ‌sadness.‌ ‌  
  
I'm sick of hating who I am  
  
I'm sick of wanting to die.  
‌  
I’m‌ ‌sick‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌pain‌ ‌that‌ ‌comes‌ ‌from‌ ‌not‌ ‌knowing.‌ ‌  
‌  
There‌ ‌are‌ ‌still‌ ‌a‌ ‌lot‌ ‌of‌ ‌things that‌ ‌I‌ ‌don’t‌ ‌know,‌ ‌and‌ ‌I‌ ‌will‌ ‌have‌ ‌to‌ ‌correct‌ ‌that.‌ ‌  
‌  
But‌ ‌there‌ ‌are‌ ‌things‌ ‌that‌ ‌I‌ ‌do‌ ‌know.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌know_ ‌ ‌that‌ ‌one‌ ‌of‌ ‌my‌ ‌bullies‌ ‌is‌ ‌a‌ ‌so-called‌ ‌“Hero.”‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌know‌_ ‌that‌ ‌the‌ ‌PRT‌ ‌obviously‌ ‌didn’t‌ ‌care‌ ‌what‌ ‌their‌ ‌heroes‌ ‌got‌ ‌up‌ ‌to.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌know_ ‌ ‌that‌ ‌‌a‌ ‌hero‌ ‌‌had‌ ‌murdered‌ ‌my‌ ‌father.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌know‌_ ‌that‌ ‌there‌ ‌were‌ ‌still‌ ‌a‌ ‌lot‌ ‌of‌ ‌things‌ ‌that‌ ‌I‌ ‌didn’t‌ ‌know.‌ ‌About‌ ‌my‌ ‌powers,‌ ‌and‌ ‌about‌ ‌the‌ ‌world.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌know‌_ ‌that‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌Hurting‌ ‌and‌ ‌that‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌to‌ ‌blame,‌ ‌But‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌not‌ ‌the‌ ‌only‌ ‌one.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _I‌ ‌know‌_ ‌that‌ ‌I‌ ‌want‌ ‌all‌ ‌the‌ ‌people‌ ‌who’ve‌ ‌hurt‌ ‌me,‌ ‌‌ _The‌ ‌Bullies_ ‌ ‌and‌ ‌ _The‌ ‌Teachers‌_ ‌and‌ ‌ _The‌ ‌“Heroes”_ ,‌ ‌‌to‌ ‌hurt‌ ‌like‌ ‌I‌ ‌am‌ ‌hurting.‌ ‌  
‌  
Most‌ ‌importantly…‌ _‌I‌ ‌know‌ ‌_ that‌ ‌I‌ ‌want‌ ‌to‌ ‌‌stop‌ ‌hurting‌,‌ ‌that‌ ‌I‌ ‌want‌ ‌to‌ ‌be‌ ‌happy‌ ‌again.‌ ‌  
‌  
‌That‌ ‌Dad‌ ‌would‌ ‌‌want‌ ‌me‌ ‌to‌ ‌be‌ ‌happy‌ ‌again.‌ ‌  
‌  
That‌ ‌I‌ ‌don’t‌ ‌want‌ ‌to‌ ‌be‌ ‌alone‌ ‌anymore,‌ ‌that‌ ‌I‌ ‌want‌ ‌to‌ ‌love‌ ‌someone‌ ‌and‌ ‌be‌ ‌loved‌ ‌back.‌ ‌  
‌  
None‌ ‌of‌ ‌those‌ ‌things‌ ‌are‌ ‌just‌ ‌going‌ ‌to‌ ‌happen‌ ‌by‌ ‌themselves‌ ‌though.‌ ‌I’ll‌ ‌have‌ ‌to‌ ‌do‌ ‌it‌ ‌myself.‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌turn‌ ‌behind‌ ‌me‌ ‌to‌ ‌gaze‌ ‌at‌ ‌the‌ ‌metal‌ ‌that‌ ‌makes‌ ‌up‌ ‌the‌ ‌hull‌ ‌of‌ ‌my‌ ‌sunken‌ ‌home., and I am struck by a bout of inspiration.  
‌  
I‌ ‌reach‌ ‌out‌ ‌with‌ ‌a‌ ‌tendril‌ ‌of‌ ‌slime,‌ ‌and‌ ‌begin‌ ‌to‌ ‌ever‌ ‌so‌ ‌slightly‌ ‌eat‌ ‌into‌ ‌the‌ ‌surface.‌ ‌  
‌  
I‌ ‌begin‌ ‌to‌ ‌write.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _“Step‌ ‌1:‌ ‌Figure‌ ‌out‌ What I want, and Who I want to be...”‌ ‌  
‌_  
As‌ ‌I‌ ‌begin‌ ‌to‌ ‌plot‌ ‌a‌ ‌new‌ ‌course‌ ‌for‌ ‌my‌ ‌life,‌ ‌I‌ ‌make‌ ‌a‌ ‌resolution‌ ‌to‌ ‌myself.‌ ‌  
‌  
If‌ ‌the‌ ‌world‌ ‌won’t‌ ‌give‌ ‌me‌ ‌Happiness‌ ‌then‌ ‌I’ll‌ ‌just‌ ‌go‌ ‌and‌ ‌find‌ ‌it,‌ ‌wherever‌ ‌it‌ ‌may‌ ‌be!‌ ‌  
‌  
If‌ ‌society‌ ‌won’t‌ ‌give‌ ‌me‌ ‌justice...‌ ‌Then‌ ‌I’ll‌ ‌just‌ ‌go‌ ‌and‌ ‌get‌ ‌it‌ ‌myself!‌ ‌  
‌  
If‌ ‌the‌ ‌world‌ ‌wants‌ ‌to‌ ‌keep‌ ‌hurting‌ ‌me…‌ ‌‌ _Then‌ ‌I'll just have to change‌ ‌the‌ ‌world!‌_ ‌  
‌  
I’ll‌ ‌get‌ ‌that‌ ‌bitch‌ ‌who‌ ‌killed‌ ‌my‌ ‌dad,‌ ‌and‌ ‌I’ll‌ ‌make‌ ‌her‌ ‌pay‌ ‌for‌ ‌it.‌ ‌  
‌  
I’ll‌ ‌right‌ ‌every‌ ‌wrong‌ ‌done‌ ‌to‌ ‌me,‌ ‌No‌ ‌matter‌ ‌how‌ ‌long‌ ‌it‌ ‌takes,‌ ‌I’ll‌ ‌keep‌ ‌going‌ ‌until‌ ‌the‌ ‌pain‌ ‌fades‌ ‌away.‌ ‌  
Until‌ ‌I‌ ‌see‌ ‌something‌ ‌other‌ ‌than‌ ‌darkness.‌ ‌Until I‌ ‌feel‌ ‌something‌ ‌other‌ ‌than‌ ‌cold.‌ ‌  
‌  
 _ **Or‌ ‌until‌ ‌I‌ ‌learn‌ ‌to‌ ‌love‌ ‌them.‌ ‌**_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's the end of the current chapter folks!
> 
> Remember I love feedback, criticism and praise equally, so give me some comments please!
> 
> Oh and if you like my stuff then you might be interested to know that I have a patreon page! If you like the things I write, then maybe consider donating so I don't have to be a wage slave for the rest of my life!
> 
> URL for my patreon is...
> 
> https://www.patreon.com/Visv
> 
> Alright, that's just about it! See you next chapter!


	8. In the Meantime...

Colin Wallis Frowned.  
  
This was not necessarily an uncommon occurrence, but all the same it indicated his frustration.  
  
The cause of his frustration?  
  
 _Hebert._  
  
It wasn’t any personal grudge against the man, no, it was just that name served to remind Colin, remind _Armsmaster_ of his failures.  
  
On January Third 2011 Taylor Hebert had not returned home from Winslow Highschool.  
  
On January fourth students returning to said high school would find one of the school lockers, Taylor Hebert’s assigned unit, lacking a door, the metal inside of said locker scrubbed clean of any rust or dirt that could have been there.  
  
There was nothing inside.  
  
On that same day Daniel Hebert had called in a missing person’s report.  
  
Police would get involved and would investigate the school, but would meet roadblock after roadblock from the faculty and students alike.  
  
It looked like the case would end up going nowhere in an astonishingly short amount of time… even for Brockton Bay’s ineffective police department.  
  
Then on January eight the reports of unusual illnesses would start pouring in.  
  
From the students of Winslow High… Specifically those students who had been assigned locker’s near Taylor Hebert’s former unit.  
  
The symptoms of this new illness lined up disturbingly well with those associated with extreme radiation exposure, such as nausea, hair loss, bloody vomit, headaches, and fatigue.  
  
In addition to these standard symptoms, there was also an additional, and far more alarming effect upon those so afflicted.  
  
That being the rapid formation of teratomas within the bodies of the affected, These cancerous growths often contained deformed iterations of bodily structures such as eyes, limbs, underdeveloped brains, and in several cases deformed reproductive organs.  
  
After anomalous effects had been discovered in the Winslow students, The PRT and Protectorate had been alerted and an immediate investigation had commenced.  
  
It turned out that Taylor's locker had been emitting an unknown, exotic, and extremely hazardous form of radiation in small amounts since the time of the girl’s disappearance.  
  
Despite the pitiful levels of energy being emitted by the metal of the locker itself, only a few days of exposure had been enough to cause immense cellular damage to those who spent any significant amount of time within a hundred feet of it.  
  
Suddenly the Hebert Case had become a much higher priority and had promptly been moved to the Jurisdiction of the PRT ENE.  
  
Daniel Hebert leapt on the chance to find his daughter, and supported the investigations to his full ability.  
  
Students and staff were questioned again, and this time the results had been picked over with a fine tooth comb.  
  
Colin’s own involvement in this affair had been limited to the analysis of the unknown radiation that had gotten the PRT’s attention to begin with… That had been… frustrating, he had not managed to ascertain anything about this new form of energy other than its extremely unusual behaviour, and its relation to odd shifts in the atomic and sub-atomic structures of the locker itself.  
  
He was sure he could have figured out more if he had been given more time, but unfortunately the radioactive emissions had steadily dwindled down to nothing within a week of their discovery, leaving Colin without a source of samples or material to exam.  
  
Other than that… annoyance, He had not been particularly involved in the Hebert Case. Even so he had been made aware of… Discrepancies… in the various reports and interludes PRT personnel had had with the students and faculty of Winslow.  
  
From the Hebert girl having been portrayed as a delinquent and poor student despite an excellent academic record up until her entry into Winslow itself, to the immensely worrying lack of information within reports issued by a PRT Employee who had been assigned to monitor the academic activities of one of the Wards who happened to attend the infamous academic establishment.  
  
All the while Daniel Hebert had been using Contacts within the city government to pressure the PRT into continuing the investigation.  
  
It had eventually been discovered that the Hebert Girl had been the victim of a severe bullying campaign, which had culminated in an unspecified prank upon Ms Hebert on the date of her disappearance.  
  
While the details of the prank were vague, it was believed that said prank had involved Hebert being trapped in her own locker.  
  
The locker which had ended up irradiated with an unknown, likely parahuman generated, form of radiation.  
  
Current theories included Taylor Hebert having triggered with a mover or breaker power that had allowed her to escape her confinement while also irradiating the surrounding environment… This had the problem that Ms Hebert had not appeared since, nor had there been any sightings of a cape with a powerset matching the theory.  
  
The second, and in Colin’s opinion, far more likely, theory had been an as of yet unknown tinker, likely affiliated with and kept secret by one of the gangs, and likely specializing in something involving radiation or biology, had taken advantage of the Hebert girl’s isolated status within the school and abducted her…  
  
The possible reasons for such an act weren’t particularly pleasant to think about.  
  
But after that discovery the investigations had switched tack to trying to gather any information that could perhaps lead to Taylor’s Hebert’s current whereabouts, or the whereabouts of her possible abductor.  
  
Then just two days ago, Daniel Hebert had called in to report that he had found a potentially useful piece of information hidden within his daughter’s belongings, information that could point to new leads, information that had been related to those who had been most responsible for Ms Hebert’s bullying and the Isolation that would have made her such a tempting target to begin with.  
  
Once again Colin had not been involved too heavily in the Hebert case at this point in time and had mostly ignored the matter…  
  
Then… well then tonight happened.  
  
The emergency alert function found in Protectorate issued Mobile phones had been activated by Shadow Stalker.  
  
Inside the House currently owned by one Daniel Hebert.  
  
Armsmaster had been the first to respond, and once he had arrived he had found… quite the situation.  
  
The Hebert home had clearly been attacked by something.  
  
Overturned or destroyed furniture littered the first floor of the home, there had been a large hole put through one of the walls, Blood was found in large quantities at two seperate locations.  
  
Shadow Stalker herself had been found just a few yards away from the Hebert Home passed out and missing most of her right arm.  
  
Daniel Hebert had been found inside the house, unconscious in a large puddle of his own blood with indications of significant head trauma and all the signs of severe blood loss… except for a wound actually capable of causing the amount of blood loss that he had clearly endured.  
  
Both of them were still unconscious at this point in time, with indications that Daniel Hebert may have entered a coma.  
  
There were already rumblings that Panacea would be called in to try and heal the two and hopefully awaken them.  
  
But Colin did not care much about that…  
  
For there had been one additional thing he had found at the Hebert home.  
  
A familiar and yet oh so mysterious form of radiation, concentrated in an extremely limited area near the northeastern portion of the building, and somehow not leaving that initial space…  
  
Despite its much smaller area of effect than the previous example of _Tri-phasal Wallis Radiation_ (name subject to change) it had all the same hallmarks that had both intrigued and Infuriated Colin before.  
  
It’s presence indicated something significant for the Hebert Case as well he supposed, that being the recurring presence of whatever parahuman force that had abducted Taylor. And that said parahuman had also attempted to attack, and perhaps kill, Daniel Hebert, potentially due to the man finding a lead.  
  
Considering that the information had only been known by Specific PRT and Protectorate Personnel and Daniel himself. It could also mean that this unknown factor had access to PRT intelligence.  
  
A disturbing possibility.  
  
Colin would need to check on the cyber security systems of the Rig at some point in the near future.  
  
Colin’s train of thought is interrupted as he hears the familiar beep of his communicator and promptly turns to look at the incoming message.  
  
It appeared that someone had already managed to get Panacea on board for healing… Well then, he would need to be there for questioning and debriefing wouldn’t he?  
  
Maybe he would even obtain new information on the unknown variable.  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
The following morning would see Brockton Bay Medical Center with a newly broken window, Panacea with fresh new mental scarring, Armsmaster with many more questions, and Sophia Hess still missing an arm.  
  
Due to Panacea’s inability to do work on brains, Daniel Hebert remains unconscious but stable. Suspected to have entered a coma due to a combination of head trauma and minor oxygen deprivation via blood loss.  
  
Fortress Construction, a company known to have hired the dockworkers for several jobs and having communicated with Daniel to do so, have, at the behest of company owner and known PRT consultant Thomas Calvert, generously donated a large sum of money to pay for Mr. Hebert’s continuing treatment and life support.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's the end of the current chapter folks!
> 
> Remember I love feedback, criticism and praise equally, so give me some comments please!
> 
> Oh and if you like my stuff then you might be interested to know that I have a patreon page! If you like the things I write, then maybe consider donating so I don't have to be a wage slave for the rest of my life!
> 
> URL for my patreon is...
> 
> https://www.patreon.com/Visv
> 
> Alright, that's just about it! See you next chapter!


	9. Larvae: First Words

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is the last chapter I already had written over on QQ, next update to it is when my muse comes back around to it!

Okay! It’s time that I got down to business! Time to finally rein in my powers and make them work for me!  
  
I mean seriously, their uncontrollability is getting absolutely ridiculous, If I could have just made a mouth then maybe…  
  
Nope, Not gonna think about that, gonna think about how to start getting some justice instead!  
  
First thing’s first…I’m going to figure out vocal cords and regain the ability of speech!  
  
In my previous aborted attempts at vocal cords I had pulled on my own dna to form a new voice box and such, the problem is… the structures I form are still made out of my goo (I’m gonna need to give it a better name soon aren’t I), and my goo has… distinctly different acoustic qualities than regular human tissue.  
  
Also the goo just kinda splatters apart whenever I try to vibrate it and make noise, let alone speak!  
  
I tried hardening them into that weird rocky crystal form I can take, To try and make them less gooey and prone to falling apart… But that just either rendered them unable to be vibrated properly from being too stiff, or if I tried to loosen them up they just became brittle and shattered when I tried to make noise with them.  
  
Suffice to say none of those results got me any closer to speech.  
  
But there has to be a sweet spot somewhere between “Too gooey” and “Too solid” right? I mean I managed to get e _yeballs_ working out of the goo, So I can definitely do this!  
  
I just need to put in more effort!  
  
Alright. time for attempt number 1!  
  
I pull upon that spot within my mental sense, drawing upon my old human dna as a blueprint for my new body to follow.  
  
First off, I form the lungs to take in and expel air, my body shifting and forming gooey sacks inside of the “Chest” area of my torso.  
  
Next I need to form the passageway from my lungs to the surface of my body to let air in and out. With a flex of my will an esophagus forms, and then a mouth a pair of lips and a tongue follow soon after, all in the same blue-black-purple coloration of the rest of my body.  
  
Alright here, take a test breath to make sure everything is working so far, open mouth, expand air sacs…  
I feel the once familiar sensation of air going down my “throat”, filling my lungs… and all I can think about is how odd it feels to breathe.  
  
Dismissing the odd sensation, I “exhale” by contracting the air sacs and forcing air back up the esophagus…  
  
Okay, so far the air flow part of this whole thing seems to be working just fine… time for the vocal cords themselves.  
  
This time as I form the various components of the voice box I aim for something in between the slime and mineral states of my body, I need something that will vibrate like human tissue without breaking apart, all while making something resembling actual noises a human makes.  
  
It takes me a few minutes to finish forming the significantly more complicated structure… But I’m ready to do some testing!  
  
Excitedly I open up my lungs and pull air and begin to speak and….  
  
The vocal cords crumble into wet and muddy... stuff that is immediately reabsorbed into my body, the only sound that leaves my mouth can best be described as “glorp.”  
  
I sag in disappointment.  
  
This is going to be _a lot_ of work.  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
For my second attempt, I tightened up the substance of the cords, and pulled them thin and taught, like bubblegum before you blew a bubble…  
  
I try to speak, and what comes out of my “Mouth” is something like a twanging rubber band and then the sound of bubbles popping.  
  
Then silence.  
  
XXXXXXXXXXX  
  
Attempt number nine! The third third time's the charm! Okay I’m gonna thicken up the cords a little more… and go!  
  
Ever use a needle to poke an inflatable ball? Like a basketball or something? The sound that came out of my mouth is like when all the air tries to rush out through the tiny hole the needle makes…  
  
Maybe I thickened them too much?  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
Attempt eleven, last time was the same as nine, so I’m going to thin the cords out even more!  
  
As I begin to try and speak, I feel my vocal cords inflate… and then the sound of a popping balloon leaves my mouth.  
  
I think I may not be on the right track with this one.  
  
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX  
  
A tentative breath, a sound like wind chimes… then the shattering of glass.  
  
My body glows with bright frantic pulses of blue and purple light, one of the few ways I have to express frustration.  
  
I also use one of my tentacles to smash against the wall of my nautical home, denting the metal slightly.  
  
I have been trying for… what must be hours now, to create functional vocal cords that can actually speak.  
  
With no luck. I can make my body form the cords just fine, but I can’t make it imitate the same physical properties that allow real vocal cords to do all that they do.  
  
It probably doesn’t help that I don’t fully understand how vocal cords are supposed to work in the first place. I mean I’m figuring out a lot just by looking at how my body uses the information stored in my dna… and I’m getting the feeling it’s less like the cords of a harp or a string instrument than I had thought.  
  
I mean did you know that there were only two vocal cords? I had always kind of thought of them like fleshy guitar strings, when I thought of vocal cords at all... but they're really more like two flaps of fleshy tissue in the throat that kinda close and open in response to various stimuli….  
  
I lash out at the wall again, the dent in the metal is deeper this time.  
  
Oh who am I kidding! I have no idea what I’m doing!  
  
Another tentacle smashes into the wall, and the dent grows deeper still.  
  
I mean my power tells me alot, but it doesn’t tell me how to make my bodies imitated structures work!  
  
What the hell am I supposed to do? I look like a freak! Even when I’m drawing on the human DNA as hard as I can, I’m still made of glowing goo! I can’t fucking speak! I eat with my skin!  
  
I’m a monster!  
  
I’m wailing at the wall now, smashing at the walls of my sunken home with furious abandon. The tortured clanging of battered metal rings throughout the empty ship!  
  
And it’s all their fault! Those fucking bitches at the school! They took away my friend! _clang!_ They took away my grades! _clang!_ They took away my happiness! _Clang!_ They took away my dad! **_Clang!_  
**  
 _They took away my_ ** _Flesh and Blood! CLANG!_  
**  
The wall gives way, Multiple layers of steel giving out entirely with a final agonized shriek as My extended tentacle smashes through them.  
  
Shattered metal stabs into my extended tentacle as the wall gives out and reveals the next room over.  
  
 _It hurts!_  
  
In response to the feeling of pain I violently reel my tendrils back towards me and…  
  
Wait? Hold on, I haven’t felt pain since I woke up like this so why…  
  
I look at my tendril… My distinctly fleshy… and _bleeding_ tentacle.  
  
What I see is dark grey and black flesh, covered in faintly glowing bright blue freckles, trickling out from slashes in the limb is glowing blue and purple goo lighting up the darkness of the wrecked boat… No wait, it’s not goo, it’s not thick enough… it’s _blood._  
  
 _And It hurts!_ I’m actually feeling pain! Which means pain receptors and nerves to transmit signals from those pain receptors… and…  
  
Wait a moment.  
  
From my memory I recall the events of the last few days, I remember myself eating through the steel hull of this boat, only to turn into that very same steel on accident while trying to create eyes…  
  
Only doing so after I called on a different aspect of my power…  
  
Was it _really_ that simple?  
  
I reach inward once again, and call up my old DNA, reforming the apparatus of a throat and a mouth and lungs all over again…  
  
But this time I also draw from a separate bank of information that my power keeps, a record of smaller structures, instead of cells and tissues and organs and systems, this part of my power records molecules and atoms and subatomic particles.  
  
A long list of specific materials is called up and arranged, and I feel the throat structures I have just created change once more.  
  
I take a breath.  
  
For a moment there is an odd hiss and crackle, like TV static, then…  
  
“Hello world!~”  
  
 _I smile._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's the end of the current chapter folks!
> 
> Remember I love feedback, criticism and praise equally, so give me some comments please!
> 
> Oh and if you like my stuff then you might be interested to know that I have a patreon page! If you like the things I write, then maybe consider donating so I don't have to be a wage slave for the rest of my life!
> 
> URL for my patreon is...
> 
> https://www.patreon.com/Visv
> 
> Alright, that's just about it! See you next chapter!


End file.
